“Wicked Cool Midgets” Split from NEMA for 2015

07Oct

Fans of Midget racing in New England will have a new racing series to check out in 2015. The new series will be known as "Wicked Cool Midgets" and will have at least 10 races across the New England region according to series director, Bill Stergios.

"I already have 10 races at Star, Hudson and Lee (all in New Hampshire) promised to us," said Stergios who is hoping to have about 16 events on their schedule. "We are looking at a couple of tracks in Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut and to hopefully get 16 as a maximum. I could probably get 20 but I don't want to overload people. 16 works out to about two races a month."

Stergios said the series' name is an ode to a book by Bentley Warren titled, "Wicked Fast." But he said that there's another reason behind the name.

"We want this to be a cool show," Stergios told Speed51.com powered by JEGS. "When a kid wants his dad to take him to the races he'll say 'Dad take me to the Wicked Cool Midgets.' He won't say 'Dad take me to the New England All-Star Type Performance Series Racing Midgets of North America.'"

The younger crowd is Stergios' main target. Stergios said he has many plans to try to get kids to want to come back after they see the series for the first time.

"I want this to be 80-percent racing and 20-percent entertainment," said Stergios. "We are going to be giving away stuff when we go to a track like kids bikes like they did up at Bear Ridge Speedway (VT) a few weeks ago. Everybody is going to have hero cards. We are going to have meet and greets on the start finish line before the races so the kids can come down, sit in the cars, and meet the drivers. We'll make this a show."

The series is going to run on Hoosier Tires according to Stergios. Stergios also added that Honda motors will not be allowed.

Many of the racers who are expected to participate in this new series currently run in the Lites class of the Northeastern Midget Association. Stergios said that discussions about separating from NEMA began a few months ago and turned into this.

"I finally made the decision a couple of weeks ago," said Stergios. "Now people will make a decision to race with NEMA or race with us or race with both. We are not objecting to that."

Stergios stressed multiple times that this is just a "business" decision and wasn't being done to hurt NEMA or anything of the sort.

"We are going to try to not schedule anything against NEMA's schedule," said Stergios. "If people want to race with NEMA they can do that and if they want to race with us we have no problem with that. They can go back and forth."

NEMA president Mike Scrivani declined to comment.

Christian Briggs has been a NEMA Lites participant for four seasons, but the 31-year-old Massachusetts driver said it was a "no brainer" to convert to Wicked Cool Midgets for next season.

"People are going to want to go see this tour," said Briggs. "It's going to be good racing. It's going to be fair racing."